Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We are live. We are live. This is Senate Finance. And I don't have some hot seat. We are going to try and pick up a few. We didn't start yesterday. We finished a few we started yesterday. Five 40 two is the terminating testing of schools in Vermont for PCBs. All polychlorinated by the Fed.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Good afternoon, this is Michael Grady with Ledge Council. I am gonna walk you through amendment to reach 05:42 as reported out by your education committee. This is on your website. Okay. The first instance amendment, as you recall, I walked you through five forty two Right. Previously, the general assembly required all schools built or renovated for 1980 to do indoor air testing of PCBs. And you had required them to do that by I told them. Yeah. Well, originally by 2025, and then you can push that up to 2027. On page two of the amendment, you will see the Fed requirement is being pushed out to 08/01/2035. It's August because ANR likes to do the testing when the students aren't there, so giving them an extra month. And then 2035 is the number that Charlotte emailed me yesterday that he won.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Then

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: moving on to the second instance of amendment, both of these, there's two instances in the second instance, and they're both very technical. In regard to the special fund that's created into which funds could be granted for investigation, remediation, and mitigation of PCBs found in schools, The attorney general had asked that the language be tweaked a little bit so that, say, any litigation recovery by the state for the cost of addressing PCB contamination in the schools, less attorney's fees and cost. And then with all special funds, there's always or maybe not all, but the most, there's always the potential for the general assembly to put money in the funds. It's the the language that came out of senate education said money is appropriated to the fund, and JFO sometime in the last ten years has gone through a preference for transfer. And so that's I'm still old and in the way. And then Mhmm. So I used appropriated when I should, and that's what that changed. You

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: are old and wise.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So that is the amendment.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So we extended the date and we did and it would get me set up. We we did the change, any litigation recovery by the state, which was requested by the AUG. And then we create corrected another scrivener's error, which we've done more than once in here in the last two days. I think that was what we had agreed on yesterday. And if that's what we agreed on, I could use a motion to amend. Age five forty two at extended in draft 1.2, dated 05/14 at 05:08PM. That's so good. Senator Chittenden, I just need to do that. Is there any further discussion? If not, I'll wait for everyone to notice. Oh, sorry. It's hard as you count if you're behind me. Yeah. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. Senator Brock, I didn't hear you.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I said yes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: You said yes. Okay. I've got that Not at school. Okay. Appreciate it. Be quiet then. 601. Senator Beck is In her birth? No. UBM. Medicine. We Yes. Commencement. We can't afford nothing. And the the board there, so he will not be here this afternoon. Okay. I now would like a I I need a motion to approve unless there are further amendments. I would need favorably as amended. Senator Chittenden has moved that we approve. Age five forty two as amended. Any further discussion? Any further amendments? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say no. I'm reading that six zero one. Okay. We are off and rolling.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Who wants to take this one?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Glenn's gonna send you, Gulick, you want to pour this one? Copy, Gulick. Okay. Alright. That was the easy part. Now we are on to H nine fifteen. This is an act relating to establishing an extended producer responsibility program for beverage containers, fondly known as the bottle bill.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: That that is correct, h nine fifteen, would it has a short term and a long term. I'm gonna focus first on the long term. The long term is that it is going to require manufacturers and distributors of beverage containers, which we refer to in the bill as deposit initiators, and I will explain that later. We require them to form a producer responsibility organization, adopt a stewardship plan approved by ANR for the collection of beverage containers that are subject to redemption. The there are several different financial slash revenue components of the bill. Do you want me to focus on those? Or do you want to

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Let's it's we haven't seen this bill or any version. Okay. Why don't you do this, like, the 2,000 foot section by section, what what's it doing? Is it adding new bottles? Is it adding one bottle?

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I think I can do all that, but I'll move pretty quickly. Yeah. And I'll stop and focus on the revenue. That would be the best. You can do that. Okay. First section is the definition section. This defines the scope of the bottle bill. It is not changing. There is not expansion of the definition of beverage. There is not expansion of the definition of container. There's actually a limit on the definition of container that anything that is, three liters or more would not be considered, a container. There are definitions of point of redemption and point of redemption with immediate, return to deposit that are fairly intuitive, but they will be used throughout the bill. I I won't focus on them right now. Page four, section, fifteen twenty two. This is a revenue section or at least it's a section that this committee has expressed interest in Okay. In the past. It's the deposit on the bottle, on the beverage container subject to redemption. It is not changing. What is changing is that there are these words that say not less than prior to 5¢. People interpreted that to mean that it could be more than 5¢. And so for clarification, but not less than words were struck. And then on page five, is the handling fee. Does everyone know what the handling fee is? So the handling fee has two components. There's the fee for those beverage containers that are commingled together or basically joint pickup and disposition. And that handling fee is being raised from 3.5 to 4.5¢. Similarly, the handling fee for non co enabled, those that have to have entirely separate sort and they aren't part of the joint collection and disposition, that is being raised from 4 to 5¢. Now both of those are only short term because once the producer responsibility organization sets up a stewardship plan beginning 03/01/2029, those handling fees will no longer apply, and you will see that saving on page five, minus 11 to 14, beginning 03/01/2029, a retailer person operating redemption center shall be reimbursed for beverage containers according to a fair cons fair compensation requirement of a plan. So that's excuse me. Clarity. Clarity on this. I wanna know who's paying

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: the fee and on what surface can be. So this is, when the, let's say, beverage warehouse, place, they've got the cans, they give the nickel back, and so now they submit a receipt to whom for the cans and bottles that they collected and who where is that money coming from?

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So the manufacturers and distributors, notice the deposit initiators in in this bill are the ones that pay the handle.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: It's like the Farrells?

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It's yeah. It's the Farrells. It's a it's the Alchemist. It's Pepsi. If they're distributing manufacturing is distributing correctly, they're the ones that pay. And there is no specific state revenue source or specific note specific recognition of where that money is coming from. It is just that the the deposit initiator has to pay the retailer, the retention center.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: They're segregating by who the bottles are from?

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. And it's and it's because the within the commingling agreement, it it's more efficient. It's more effective. There's less labor and time that's required to to, you know, redeem, segregate, manage, and then have collected. And it's always it's always just fought alongside in here. It's always been this way. And the commingled the non commingled has always been higher to encourage those that don't commingle to join the commingling because it increases your cost if you have to pay that extra fee on the non commingle. So that becomes an incentive to join the commingle program.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: End of that one.

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: Sorry. Understood. I spent

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: a very brief amount of time in a redemption room, and I vividly remember because I did not sort the best way I get excrued at for not doing that in the correct way. Apparently, I

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: see why. So if Pepsi

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: sends drinks to wherever beverage store, do they send along

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: these 4 and a half cents with it?

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: No. So the 4 and a half cents is paid when effectively for what is collected from the retail redemption or redemption center. It's not it doesn't travel with Okay. What travels with is the deposit. The 5¢ goes from the manufacturer to the retailer. The retailer charges it to the customer. Customer goes away, comes back, retailer gets back to 5¢. Right? And then the manufacturer gets the 5¢ back.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: So then where those 4 and a

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: half cents get paid from? If it's the initiative?

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It's from the manufacturer. There is no specific source that's in state law about where the handling fee comes from. It's just required to.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It's similar to we require manufacturers to take back batteries. The concept is they send them out, they made money sending them out, they should be responsible for disposing of Right. You don't pay Right. This is the early

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: collection sites of Right. Fee per battery.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: No. They take them back. I'm

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: generally understanding this whole process, but I'm really intrigued by the people that collect the cans back. Where do

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: they get that check from the money for both commingled and minkled? From from commingled, it comes from Thomas. From non commingled, that's a separate individual relationship. I'm almost here. Summer is the contracted entrance entity that runs the commingling program.

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

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I mean, there are there is a redemption center in the room that could probably tell you where he gets it from the non commingle.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Just tell us who you are and who you represent.

[Shane Switzer (Redemption Center Owner, Lamoille Redemption)]: Shane Switzer, Lenovo Redemption. It actually it all comes from Tamara, commingle or non commingle fee. Tamara picks up the bags and the sorts from us, and they pay us on a weekly basis. They send a check for everything that they pick up, owing them up.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: They the bottles or do they?

[Shane Switzer (Redemption Center Owner, Lamoille Redemption)]: Count and sort customer purposes. Okay. And then when Thomas comes, we have bags with a certain number of cans in them that they take away well, whatever it may be, that they take away, and that's how we get reimbursed. Whatever they take away from us, we get reimbursed.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So you send them a bag of 100 cans, they send you back x dollars a week. Alright.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: So then where did they get the Warnap? I imagine they already show

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: the Warnap. I can't speak to that.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Because I thought the whole thing is you're just always chasing the money around in a circle. Everyone makes money, but no

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: one gets Always chasing money. Deposit. Right.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: The the the the beverage distributors get it from the sale of beverages. It comes out of my cautious

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: root beer upstairs. Part of the price is the price of So it's in Their profit and their cost. And one of their costs is the 4 and a

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: half cents that they have to pay in order for cans to be recycled.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Exactly. What about the cans that pay the deposit but aren't recycled?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Those are are sheets, and the sheets go to the the they're not deposited. They don't get the 5¢ back. So the 5¢ that wasn't used from the deposit goes back to the state, and it is goes into the clean water fund.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. That's

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: right. And part of these sheets is used are used in this.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. But then you're gonna look at the sheet section

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: for the

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: very technical reason, but it's not changing otherwise.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And you you are missing another little cake in this. Uh-huh. If you go to New Hampshire and buy a case of beverage, it generally comes stamped with the deposit. They don't do it

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Well, they do stamp they stamp it.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: They stamp them. And there have been complaints that you don't pay the deposit in New Hampshire. We But if you bring it over here, the redemption center has no way of knowing if you actually paid the 5¢ or not. So that also drains. That drains some of the money from the stuff that isn't being.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: We put a little clause in here to try to deal with that. The Seinfeld phrase. So

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: that Oh, yes.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Yeah. You remember that? Yeah. Love that. That's what we have. So

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: it it is not a perfect system. We're trying to make it better. It's been working for how many decades?

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: 1972.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Well, it's been since I moved into the state. So Over fifty years.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: So go full circle with it. The sheets part. Pay that 5¢ at the store, go home, drink my beverage, I throw it in my blue bib.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Because I don't spend a dry bag somewhere that usually isn't open. Right. Not many around.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So I throw

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: it in my blue

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: what this bill is gonna help with.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Yes. That's what we've been trying

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: to do. Blue vid more?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: No. To help Oh. To make

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: sure redemption centers are open and available. And there's

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: not even people there. It's a machine. Yeah.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: We have more of those people. I can focus on the convenience. Why am I driving? Are they?

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Other greens.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Diesel's. They Let's let Michael say

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Sorry, Mike.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Let's let Michael finish. We're on page five. So

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: there are sections in here about when a retailer or retention center can or when they are required to accept it, they are allowed to refuse their changes to the labeling of the container that's fifteen twenty four, which allowed some alternative labeling options. One of the key things on page eight in lines twelve and thirteen in the labeling is that every beverage container, Chef container, UPC, and universal product code, and a barcode displayed on the container to help with redemption and make redemption easier through machines or other electronic scanning. Page eight, line 15, section fifteen twenty seven. I think you probably all know that the Department of Liquor and Lottery runs their own effective redemption or EPR program. They sell, and then they collect those bottles, protein bottles from liquor, and then they pay for redemption by by redemption centers and retailers. That has been going on for years, but the transparency of that has not been transparent. So what do about that. The

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: take wine bottles? No wine.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Oh, no wine. Alright.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So page eight, line 15, you are adding in effectively what TLL already does for the redemption of liquor bottles. They, on page nine, the deposit on liquor bottles is 15¢. The handling fee paid for those who are redeeming liquor bottles is 4¢. One of the things that the language says that is new is it allows DLL to coordinate with the producer responsibility organization subsequently required in the bill?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I think it's 4 and a half cents.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It is

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: 4 and a half cents.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: That's my I just misnoted. So the the DLL can coordinate with the PRO for the collection of liquor bottles. It it's going to be more cost effective for to do it that way instead of running their own collection or contracting for their own collection. There's a section in here about redemption center certification. I'm gonna skip over that because that we will be repealed once the PRO is in place. On page 11, line three, you get to section fifteen thirty. This is the sheets. This is the abandoned bed of container deposit section. The only thing that's changing here is you're taking the definition of the deposit initiator who's the person that is responsible for paying the sheets back to the state. You're moving that definition into the definitions for the entire chapter instead of just for this one section. Remember how I said we're using the term deposit initiator for manufacturer and distributor. There are some retail distribution models that where it was confusing about who would be subject or both the manufacturer and distributor will be subject. For purposes of the PRO, it's the first patent to collect a deposit is the one that is subject to the requirements of the BOP build, and we already do that for a sheet, so we just move that definition for that deposit initiator to the chapter as a whole. So we Real real fast,

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: that deposit initiate Pepsi sends drinks to Store ad. Store ad pays that 5¢ to Pepsi. Right? And that goes all the way

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: around. Yeah.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Say it was a thousand bucks in the beginning of the deposit. Comes all the way back around, it's only $800. That's where the $200 sheets comes from because they have $200 more than or they got back $200 less than they Right. Received the first 9. Right?

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So remember that that 5¢ passes down to the consumer. The consumer is ultimately the one that pays the 5¢. And that is consumers has the right to come back and just retrieve that 5¢ on the term of the the container. If the 5¢ doesn't come back, it's the consumer that's forfeiting it. It was never the manufacturers to begin with.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: No.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Right? The consumer made it.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Every time you use the scrubby,

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: you But can't

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: how do you know? Been.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: You

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: How do you know what?

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: The 5¢ never got.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So in that section that I

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Just because

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: of the beginning, that initiator had a thousand dollars worth of deposits that were Yeah. Sold to the store. Right. So the

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: And then by the time it comes all the way back. Right? Quarterly, the deposit initiator has to report how much they they charged in deposit and how much they collected or paid out effectively for the redeemed containers. And then they they submit that difference to the state.

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: Because it ebbs

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: and flows. Because you buy it here and you return it over there. Right.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: It's all gonna

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. It all it all washes out for the manufacturer in the end. Okay. So this is Jermaine.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: You are section of the bill, so I think it's worth con did the morning committee I'm curious. Have you had reporting on how much is being redeemed, and are these sheets increasing? Are we seeing more and more of these these nickels being retained by the state to fund the clean water fund? Because people are just throwing them in the blue bin and not going for their nickels

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: that the stores have seen going behind even

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: We did see data on the redemption rate, and I don't recall it off the top of my head, but it's around 572%. Okay, looks pretty close.

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC)]: So, for the record, Mattos, I'm director of Waste Management Prevention Division at DEC. So, we've basically seen a relatively continuous decline in the number of containers redeemed sort of over the years, and frankly, a reduction in the number of redemption centers that are certified as a state.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: But here, there's only one in there.

[Bradley (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. In Washington County, there's one

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: in Waterbury and one in Barrie,

[Matt Chapman (Director, Waste Management & Prevention Division, VT DEC)]: and that's pretty much a jab.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Yeah. Part of what this bill does is is increases, I don't know my gloves are not in there, but it increases the the number of redemption centers where they have to be including in a town of 7,000 or more. So, lumpier. And it also increases the percentage if sets targets for the producers of

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: the similar, at least in parts, to bill we did

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: That was passed, and that was that was vetoed. Yeah. The difference between those two bills is that bill, vetoed bill, expanded the scope of the the beverages and the containers. That's

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: for the wine box. Nobody

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: wanted It brought in pretty much everything except some specific exceptions. Right. And that that had consequences outside of the redemption system. Had consequences on, say, the blue bin collectors who are cat worth. That's part of their revenue. It was gonna have consequences on just the sale of products, labeling products that are currently not labeled right now. There were concerns about the volume or the space that was gonna be needed for redemption, especially since some of these those containers in the expanded universe were juice bottles and orange juice and etcetera and things, and wine. And

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: the local vineyards were upset because they'd have to go to Brattleboro if they sold two bottles of wine at the farmers market there to pick up the bottles. That was I remember that testimony because it's my local opinion. So it yeah. It it it was greatly expanded the scope, and it said a lot of things about the manufacturers organization would develop and pay for the machines.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: That's what this bill does too.

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

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: The other bill also had wasn't necessarily an automatic estimate

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: or a

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: deposit, but it had more readily something if something happened, it it would have been decent deposit.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: This does not decrease

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: This does not increase the deposit.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: More because my concern with that bill was the infrastructure wasn't there. People that work all week, and I know them, are not gonna take their bag of water and they've got water bottles in that one. They're not gonna go stand in line for an hour to two hours in Barrie to get a deposit on their bottles.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, I'm we're getting a little ahead of ourselves, but to just reiterate something that senator Hardy just said, as part of the plan, one of the key parts of the plan is what's called the convenience requirement, and it requires the PRO that sets up the plan to meet two specific convenience requirements. One is at least three points of collection per county, one of which has to have an immediate return to deposit. And then in every town with 7,000 or more, there has to be one with immediate return deposit unless somehow the immediate return of deposit is somehow an impediment to the system. In addition, there are two other narrative requirements for convenience, one of which is looking at designated downtowns where it's not 7,000 or more, whether or not it's appropriate to locate redemption in those areas because of of the population and or the need. Yeah. And then general, that they need to be located across the state in a way that is equitable and convenient for the population as a whole.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So that, this bill, is concentrating on establishing the infrastructure that's necessary to handle the present volume without increasing the volume before we can

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, if if you have increased convenience, Senator Mattos doesn't have to throw his container in the blue bin. Right. He might wanna maximize his his revenue when go to the redemption center that Put

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: it in the pink bin next to the blue bin, and that's It's

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: the pink bin. That's the trash bin. So

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: I'll I'll just say that I'm I'm like,

[Bradley (Legislative Counsel)]: slowly spill up, and

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: I I get that you guys need to get more money for doing this service. I just I personally think the bottle bill has run its course, and I do think we should get rid of this deposit, but I'm not gonna try to advocate for that now. This was passed in 1970 with a nickel then before people recycled, before we had universal recycling, and we're standing up a secondary redundant recycling stream, segregating out valuable resources and with a very costly secondary system, we're dropping them more. I'm not a fan of the continued use of the nickel deposit. But that being said, I think that's where you're alluding to on this. The alternative would be just to stop collecting these things because people are just throwing them in the loop ins.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: It is the same argument I made when this last bottle bill was there is that I just think about now expanding this even more and about having two systems that effectively do the same thing. We wanna recycle these materials. And with by expanding this, we already had trucks on the road picking up these blue bins. We have people going to the local dump recycling them, and I don't wanna expand this out. And even, you know, with the five cents, yes, I understand. I'm paying 5¢, and then it gets thrown into the blue bin. That 5¢ then goes to fun clean water. So at the end of the day, for me, currently as it stands, not the worst thing in the world that I'm recycling my bottles, not getting the money back because right now, I don't have time to go, a, find a place that's open, b, wait in line to put my things in there. And if I'm spending $10 in diesel to go get back $10 in deposits.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: And your Saturday morning. And my Saturday morning.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. But that's

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: another day of underdog.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We this is the bill. At this point in the session, we're not going to get rid of it. It is, I think, a step back and learn from the problems with the last bill, which kind of bit off more than it could chew. I think it's proposing to give some help It is. Redemption folks who

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It increases their compensation in the short term, requires that they have fair compensation in the long term, creates a grant program to to help the PRO, the manufacturers and distributors set up, improve collection, improve convenience, and then improve modern

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: technology. And And what we're talking of manufacturers, we're talking Fabricant. Owns and Coke. I mean, almost anything you could drink is probably owned by five, maybe big corporations. Not a whole lot.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, one of the questions in my mind

[Sen. Randy Brock (Member)]: is what is the cost of this whole redemption process? If you took that cost and you applied it to the individual containers. This is the most Right now lowest cost. We have the same amount on deposit that was collected in 1973, and that 5¢, today's dollars, value is 38¢, is what we're actually paying in real dollars. And then you look at what the markup is in terms of manufacture being made whole as part of the process, and then that enormous cost associated with the pickup, delivery, and movement between various parties in the process, plus the cost that you have as consumers having to handle it. But as I think senator Hardy mentioned, that fact that we had various people come to our houses for various purposes, such as trash collection and so on, that we could use for that purpose. And we don't. We have to, you know, I myself, to get rid of bottles, I've got a six or seven mile round trip to do that, and then waiting in line. All of these are costs associated with this process, and as you start comparing them to what the benefit is, since we have a collection process that exists that most of us pay for anyway, for bottles and other glass materials. It's also Is this worth

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: the effort of people? Reusing, and I think we were supplying the polar fleece industry, which is made out of recycled plastic bottles. And when we were going and it was a number of years ago. We first talked about recycling water bottles or putting a deposit on them. The recycling centers came in and said, that's what's paying for all the cardboard we can't get rid of. Now those markets changed. The testimony last time was it's kind of switched out. Yeah. Maybe we could do it. Just don't make us do wine bottles, which Miller wants. But this one is infrastructure, so it will make it more convenient. Not everybody will, but more will, And it will get some money to the distribute not the distribution, redemption centers, which they need. And it will get us in the process of seeing if we can set up a manufacturer's group that is responsible for taking this fall back because in the end, they're the ones that are making the process. You don't have ice cream.

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: No. It's right.

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

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: there. Goodness.

[Nick Sherman (Leonine Public Affairs), for the Vermont Wholesale Beverage Association]: Right. Jane

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

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Terry made it. Terry Terry Terry's made daughter sounds.

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: There's still 24.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. We vote. I I just wanna say so

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I'm I'm on the Senate Natural Resources Committee, I really wish that senator Beck was here. He is the reporter of this bill in the Senate Natural Resources Committee, and I think that he became more and more convinced. I cannot speak for him, but enough so that he wanted to he he was advocating for the increase in the handling fee and wanted to report the bill because he felt strongly about supporting it. But you should talk to him. I can't speak with

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: going, but I I just go to our sections. Well, we I can

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I just wanna respond to some of the things that were said? We took extensive testimony. We've we worked on this for weeks. Shane, like, slept in the committee room because he was there every day. And and one of the things that that the bottle redemption system does that the move in system does not do is it produces clean and much more valuable products. And they are much more likely to be reused again and actually recycled, and they are actually more valuable. So you can get a much, much higher return from the plastic, the glass, and the metal that you get from the from the redemption process than you can from the blue bin process. So much so that a few years ago, one of our recycling centers in the state, I believe in your district, senator, actually dumped glass on in the environment because it was not worth anything to them, and they had to pay a fine for doing it in the end. But the the materials that are that come out of the redemption system are much more valuable than the material materials that go into the blue bins that are often not recycled. And so that is one of the benefits of the system. It hasn't been updated in years. We've tried and tried and tried. This bill is taking a much more narrow approach, trying to fix the system we have and put some some investments in it, create a producer responsibility organization, which is what we have for a lot of of of other materials in our state. Matt Chapman is a super expert on these. He's always been talking to us about how we can recycle something else through a PRO. And so I think it's not it's not an alien system. There are many other states that do it, and in fact, many other countries that have versions of PROs. And this is what we need to do to to actually free to help save a system that is really, really popular and beloved by Vermonters.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: I'm gonna vote for this, but I just have to say, I don't know if the value add of cleaner is outweighing the cost of this secondary system.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I just wanna question that.

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: Okay. And the environmental impact in the environment.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: That was the element with water bottles. Senator Betty came in Stores. With a bunch of water bottles. He picked it out on the side of the road and put one on each one of our desks before he was told that props were illegal in the senate, and he then had to pick up. He filled the water bottles because I wasn't touching the one on my side.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: This cleaner.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So Joe Bennett. Joe Joe ran up his first year, he ran up against a couple rules. Mark did

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: it too. Mark is but Mark brought in Mark brought in trash bags. I mean, he shook them on the floor.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I sound like Mark. That's why I thought you were talking about

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: No. This has been gone over. I'm gonna hold us to our Section? Section. Alright. Well, then I can't speak because mine is not Because that's the reason

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: why I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I just decided that this is a place that should go forward. K. We can look at the fees. If people want to put an amendment together to abolish the bottom bill, you can do so on the floor of the senate.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. So I'm gonna move on to your

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: next section. Your next section, that's your section, and that would be on page 20 of the bill, and it is how ANR is reimbursed. So most EPR programs have a requirement that the PRO, the entity subject to the requirements pay ANR a fee for the ANR cost of overseeing the system. ANR is moving to a a new way to do that instead of it being a set fee, which can often be pretty high. They're looking for they're asking to have the PRO reimbursed. It's on page 17. It's not on page 20. I'm sorry. Okay. Good. And so and that will be part of the budget process. So they will ANR will develop effectively what it will cost them, nesting or what it will cost them per year. They let the PRO comment. They submit to the general assembly and the governor what it's gonna cost.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: In the in the state budget.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. And then as part of the budget, it will be approved by you, and that's what ANR will be reimbursed for for the the administration of the system. So that's page 16 to 17. Page 20, this is as part of the plan. Once the PRO sets up its organization and running a plan, the first year plus from from March 2029 to July 2030. They're gonna be paying the three points of redemption for and 1 half cents per container. That sunsets after one year. This is to, like, transition from the existing system to the new system. After that, compensation of the points of redemption will be done through negotiation between single points of redemption or groups of points of redemption. The next issue or fiscal issue is page 25. This is the bottom of page 25, line 19, section fifteen thirty three. All of these EPR programs have audit requirements. There's an operational requirement, like how is it operating, how well is it doing, and then there's a fiscal audit. The fiscal audit is on page 26 that begins 10/01/2030, and then looks how well the looks at the finances of the PRO, provides an analysis of its expenditures, the number of average containers collected, and amount of unpaid deposits. And then secretary shall And so that's part of every one of your EPR programs. And then the next changes are about the funding of the implementation grants. Those are on page 33. For four fiscal years, beginning in fiscal year twenty thirty, money will be transferred from the Clean Water Fund to the Waste Management Assistance Fund for for deposit and solid waste management assistance account for grants to the PRO to assist them in implementing, basically standing up the new stewardship plan. And so you will see page 33, line six through nine, a million in 2030, similarly, a million in 2031, July in 2032 and 2033. Those going on page 34, going on to page 35 into the waste management assistance fund, you'll see on page 35, line 17, ANR enters a grant agreement with the PRO for bottle bill implementation. It's for four years, the four years that you just looked at, and reimburse the cost of equipment and improvements to infrastructure documented by the PRO in the Minnesota Plan. And and Is

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: that transfer an allowable use for the more I thought?

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: That's up to you because it's an appropriation. There's no limitations in the clean water fund about how it's not like the petroleum cleanup fund where that fund says don't ever ever use this for anything else besides the petroleum cleanup.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Or the higher end. Right. Well, it's the

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: only thing we had to know what it was. The we didn't it's not the fund. We didn't have a source of funding for Which one? Clean water.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: You did infer you you had not a sufficient Yes. Source that EPA said in order to approve the TMDLs in the state, because TMDLs need to to basically have a reasonable expectation of success.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And we found it in here. I just don't remember what it was. Well, that would be a result. We can't.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: There's there's several. There's property transfer tax, there's charge. There's the sheets. Yeah. And there's a percentage of the rooms, wheels, and

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Percentage that we came up with that year.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I remember that pipe. But this is the sheets. This is that's like where why this is being justified as moving it from the water fund.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Said that's what is part of what And these sheets are going in, so we're really not transferring a million dollars in sheets into the fund for holding them back.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Yeah, and I remember that was Anthony Pohina, the use of sheets into the Clean Water Fund.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yes, and it's like a new amendment at this time of year on the floor that no one was ready for. One of those days.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I mean, there's always been tension about the use of the sheets for clean water, especially from those entities that would prefer to use for solid mix. And

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

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: One of the things that the one of the last revenue thing in the bill for the fiscal aspect of the bill is page 36. There's just a clear cap on the amount of the grants that can be made in each fiscal year because the solid waste management assistance is greater than the the total of these. So you don't want it to be, like, the agency can dip into other sources in that account and and use those because there's competing interest for for those the funds in those accounts.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: If there's money, there will be competing interest.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: And then page 37, section seven, that's the section that strikes the the just over a year handling fee for the points of redemption in the plan, and that's it. For the model bill, there are a couple of sections at the end of the bill related to the Household Hazardous Products program. I won't get into the kind of mechanics of what is changing there. One of the things that is relevant to your jurisdiction is that the way that they will be reimbursed for their cost is the same way I explained that they will be able to reimburse A and R will be reimbursed. It's significant. Through the budget process, opportunity for the PRO to comment. You would have to approve it as part of their budget. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And we have questions for going here.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I was expecting a live conversation, but that was a little live here.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Tells when it's going to clock.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Separate joint. Sorry.

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: I'm going to hop right into the fiscal impacts section of the fiscal note. And the primary fiscal impact are those transfers from a clean water fund to the solid waste management assistance account of the waste management assistance fund in fiscal years January through 2033. As Mike mentioned, the amount would be up to a million dollars in fiscal years 02/2030 2031, and then 750,000 in fiscal years 2032

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: and 2033. So

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: it's clean water cloud, We could cease the transfer. The power of veins in our hands as long as people are embedding their deposits. Yes, and

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: the clean water budget is a part of the appropriations process as well, so you would be able to use

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: these together.

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: So yes, that total of the million and 750,000 is 3 and a half million in total over those four fiscal years. The other part we wanted to mention is that if the new system of container the PRO is effective and redemption centers are more accessible and the rate of redemption increases, you may see a reduction in s sheets permitted to the Clean Water Fund. We did not do a forecast for that given that the current rate of redemption isn't substantially different from the initial goal of 75%, but did wanna note if you are reaching the goal of 80% it when it starts in 07/01/2033, you would start to see SG revenue decrease a bit. And I do have data on SG revenue for the forecast since '27 that's starting in fiscal year 2023, and it is roughly level Okay. Over that time period or estimated to be roughly flat. Other piece is talking through the two possibilities in the bill. If ANR is responsible, so is the PRO. The PRO is unable to form by can't form the PRO. ANR would form that responsibility to be able to be reimbursed for their costs in doing so. We'll note that the the scale is quite different. Matt Chittenden provided some information for us. For me, in in the current, you know, where they're providing oversight of the system, they've allocated point one FTE. For that SIF activity, if they were responsible for administering and serving of the PRO, the cost would be quite a bit more than that. They would also be responsible for paying out the initial handling fees. They would be reimbursed by manufacturers for those fees, but they'd be responsible. So just wanna know that these are these scales are quite a bit different. Yeah. So, you know, I think the Senate National Resources increased the the recycling market development assessments, which from 10 to 25%. So given that that is intended to really encourage the deposit initiators to form their own PRO, seeing that as the more likely outcome, but wanted to flag both possibilities. The other piece is that ELL, since it functions as its own PRO, they effectively they are paying the handling fees, and they work with Tamara. They contract out with Tamara. And so by increasing the handling fee for DLL from 3 and 4 and a half cents, They would pay out a approximately $35,000 more in fiscal year handling fees. And so given that their cost for administration of revenue and cost to them are in the Liquor Control Enterprise Fund. By paying more and handling fees, there'd be a little bit less money that they would have available in the Liquor Control Enterprise Fund, but ELL is able to retain unclaimed deposits for liquor. And so it's not you know, right now, I would say their the amount of money they're receiving from unclaimed liquor bottle deposits roughly covers their administration of the program. It's in similar magnitudes. It might be slightly different when you increase the handling fees.

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

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: And finally, this did wanna note that they are the DLL is working with Tamara. The contract is relatively long term, but if the the PRO that is formed under the bill offers some cost savings is a better deal than who they're currently working for, There may be some changes to their costs, but hard to know even though that's we don't know what the system's gonna look like. I am happy to run through some general high level figures on s sheets and how they fit into the Clean Water Fund, or it

[Nick Sherman (Leonine Public Affairs), for the Vermont Wholesale Beverage Association]: can be background information you

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: can read in the physical book.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Question was for Chittenden.

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: Then, yeah, table two shows how SGTs fit within the broader revenue sources for the Clean Water Fund. For fiscal year twenty seven, they're $3,800,000 of the 31

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: How I think why the rooms and meals tax was so important. These sheets become much less important in the overall scheme than water. Not quite. Close. Okay. Committee questions? Okay. We go for chat. I've got we I've got one, two, three, four people, and we're already behind. Mister chairman, can you come?

[Nick Sherman (Leonine Public Affairs), for the Vermont Wholesale Beverage Association]: Sure.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Another time?

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, yeah. Another time. No problem.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Unless you represent some of these people, because I'm gonna have to say, keep it down to a minute or two because this would not help. Go Yeah. From there, or if you're all gonna say approximately the same thing that we're that one of you can talk. I

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: think we have different points, so I'll probably

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: You're brought up.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I'll be

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: happy to

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Just tell us who you are. I'll fill you down the street. Yeah.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Thanks for having me again. Shane Switzer from Living by Redemption. I just have something I'm gonna read here, public speaking song, I think. So I'm gonna read through this here. Speaking on behalf of redemption centers and the people who operate them every day here in Guam, one thing that I think it's important to recognize at the start is the bottle bill redemption system works.

[Shane Switzer (Redemption Center Owner, Lamoille Redemption)]: We've had some discussion today about whether it works or not or whether it should remain. Rwanda consistently has one of the stronger, container return systems in the country with reduction rates believed to be somewhere in the 65% or 70% range. By comparison, states without strong enough systems often see dramatically lower recycling rates. As an example, in Massachusetts, their recycling, the return rate is 25% to 35%. And so as senator Hardy mentioned, we we heard testimony in sentimental resources about the clean glass that we get out of this and that it can be easily reused. I I don't know the numbers, so I'm not gonna quote them exactly, but just some really high numbers of the glass that can be used and such. The the success rate does not happen accidentally. It comes because there's a real physical structure behind the system that are redemption centers. We employ Vermonters that sort, store, have that run the day to day operations to make this possible. The challenge is that the cost of the the operating or of operating that infrastructure has changed dramatically over the last twenty years while the handling fee has remained unchanged. And, meanwhile, a 20 ounce Pepsi that cost a dollar 9 in 2007, which is the last time that we got raised or an increase. You know, a dollar 9 in 2007, it's $2.99 today. That's a 174% increase. Same to be said for other types of beverages. We won't get into that, but aluminum prices are up since then, about 54%. At the same time, redemption centers have been forced to our our costs are rising in every single direction. I won't get into those, but we can all imagine insurance, labor, all that good stuff. I wanna acknowledge something directly that none of us want higher prices for the consumer, if that's where this, you know, this increase goes. Our store is our store is 20 miles from the from the New Hampshire border, and we don't need on pricing every single day. We understand the pressure that the one consumer is under as far as of passing those stock along to them, if that's where it ultimately goes. And we're talking about the biggest companies in the world here that we're that we are that are the deposit initiators. And the reality is that we have a we're at the point where the system itself is under significant long term pressure if adjustments are not made. The question before the legislature is simply not whether a beverage could cost 1¢ more. The larger question is whether Vermont wants to maintain a redemption system that has been nationally successful or whether we whether we allow financial pressures to continue building until redemption centers are forced to reduce their services, hours, or even close altogether. We get extensive testimony in the Senate Natural Resources about, like, redemption centers are, like, disclosed. Are not I'll give you an example of our particular numbers in a second. There's a few other points that I had, but in the spare time, I'll I'll close with these are our numbers for last year. Last year, we we redeemed 4,400,000 containers, and we lost $2,900 last year. Yeah. And just if we separate we have a store, and the stores is a whole different story, but we also have a redemption center in the statute. Just starting redemption, what this 1¢ increase means to us is $44,000 next year. That's $846 a week. We're not asking for this thing to be a huge we're we're not we don't need huge windfall here. We just need to be able to be sustainable over the next several years. And what this bill offers is some modernizations in the system to make it a little more efficient. It gives us an increase in the short term. And and we the redemption system employs a lot of a lot of Vermonters that are that are possibly vulnerable Vermonters. It's a job that some people can come to and and that, you know, may be unemployed otherwise and such. Mhmm. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer any. I try to be pretty

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Do have one of the sorting machines that people or are you still

[Shane Switzer (Redemption Center Owner, Lamoille Redemption)]: So we don't. No.

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: Okay. There's So

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: you still have individuals back there sorting or packing or yeah. Okay. Yep.

[Shane Switzer (Redemption Center Owner, Lamoille Redemption)]: And so what this bill does is a little bit of of there's some money in there that get us some equipment. Maybe that's one of the higher producing stores with a higher ones with higher throughput. Yeah. Some from that I'm

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: gonna be the senator. I know. It's acting so quiet today. Yeah. I know. Thank you for your testimony. I'm lucky. I live in Burlington. We have a redemption center right where I do my grocery shopping next door. And over the years, I've built a great relationship with my bottle team, bottle guys, and decided a long time ago, I just give them my bottles. And if there's a fundraiser going on, I say give it to the fundraiser. If not, keep it. And they are so thankful. And so I just wanna share my appreciation.

[Shane Switzer (Redemption Center Owner, Lamoille Redemption)]: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. There's a lot of that. A lot of that. We have that we have multiple bands that for different organizations that can donate here, and they and they do well. So so the yeah.

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

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: I'm just curious. So this bill lays out process for, you know, you have to have x amount of redemption centers in Yes. Downtowns and towns and whatever. So last year, you had 4,400,000 cans, bottles that you touched. What happens when the competition grows, all your overhead stays the same, and you get 3,000,000 bottles?

[Shane Switzer (Redemption Center Owner, Lamoille Redemption)]: Yep. And so, there's a lot of places where there's redemption deserts in the state. I think that this bill is is designed to to combat that. I in my county, there's there's plenty of redemption, if you will. And, you know, that's not to say that somebody couldn't open one. Yes. What I do guarantee is right now, nobody's gonna open a redemption center because we there's zero margin at all. So when they crop up some more, I think it's that this bill is designed to to prop them up in places where there's there's big deserts. And and I I think this area is one of the largest.

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

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Because I like, senator, do you look back at there was couple towns up, there was an awesome redemption center,

[Shane Switzer (Redemption Center Owner, Lamoille Redemption)]: You know?

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Guy just did redemption. Yeah. Had a great relationship with him, and he would actually travel out to places that were bigger producers of of Redemption. Yeah. And, unfortunately, he he closed up shop too, and that was my go to. So that's

[Shane Switzer (Redemption Center Owner, Lamoille Redemption)]: it. Yeah. I think a lot of redemption centers are at the point where they've made every efficiency that they can possibly realize to to their personal situation, and they're and it's like, it's peering. I mean, losing $2,900 a year, I need to look at reallocating that space. Like, I like, I'd be crazy to I'm a I mean, at the end of the I'm a for profit business. Yeah. I I there's other things that I can do with that space possibly to to speak, you know, and and it it's a it's a community service that we're offering as well. I mean, that's part of it. We're not trying to get rich. We're just trying to You're not a chair. Offer up.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Do you think a lot more of the little bins that you put them in and count them will pop up? Like, our big center in town has switched to that type of model.

[Shane Switzer (Redemption Center Owner, Lamoille Redemption)]: So do

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: you think

[Shane Switzer (Redemption Center Owner, Lamoille Redemption)]: a of So there's possibly some RBMs that'll that'll come out of it on the reverse vending machines that you put one in at a time. A lot of the grocery stores and the big retailers have those. Think one of the things that's gonna come out of this bill is they're talking about bag drops, where you drop your bag off and you tag it to some extent and you get it. It gets put in an account, an app or something that that you can you can access the money, you know, maybe a few days later. Yeah. But but it seems like a kind of maybe a possibly convenient way to sort of make use of people that do that. So do that in other states in Maine and such at the grocery store, you can you can raise your up.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Twenty, thirty years ago in the grocery store, I first learned people to return wine bottles. But they had an extensive setup, so I'm sure they're even more about those. What do one of those machines cost?

[Shane Switzer (Redemption Center Owner, Lamoille Redemption)]: And so there's there's lots of talk about that. And as an individual, if I go try to buy one, it's it's tens of thousands, possibly $20.30, 40,000.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: 30 was sticking in my head for one of redemption centers that came in. So there's a significant investment and at 3 and a half cents can. It's gonna take a lot of hands to pay off. And if you're running in a loss Yeah. It

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: doesn't make sense at all.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Done yeah. Right. You gotta have the money to pay for it. Okay.

[Shane Switzer (Redemption Center Owner, Lamoille Redemption)]: Well, I think that this bill accomplishes some of that. So I think that, you know

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Yeah. We talk we had a lot

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: of testimony about these machines.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: Will those army ends put your you out of business with what you do, or would you think you might just put them in where you have that space for your collection?

[Shane Switzer (Redemption Center Owner, Lamoille Redemption)]: So there's a couple of things when we talk about machinery, there's a couple of things in the market. The RVMs that when we when we refer to an RVM, we're referring to a reverse vending machine that is a single serve like you see at Shaw's over here or at Price Chopper or something. Exactly. And it's one bottle at a time. Not the awesome best way to redeem a bottle. If you have a lot, you're not doing it. And then there's also what there's been lots of talk of in this bill, in this process, is some bulk feed machines that you can come and dump bags into, and and and that will make it for the a lot easier. The go to and there's a line there. It's gonna go a lot bigger. These machines count hundreds of can per minute. And and so we're you know, we we welcome that for sure. I mean, that that's part of the modernization of this of this book. You're fine. Alright. Thank you for having me.

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

[Shane Switzer (Redemption Center Owner, Lamoille Redemption)]: Thanks. Thank

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: you. Deathly? Ms. Gulick? She's on. No, I'm too.

[Bree Dietly (Breezeway Consulting), for the Beverage Association of Vermont]: I am. Thank you, Chair Cummings, members of the committee. My name is Bree Dietley. I am a consultant with Breezeway Consulting, which is my own firm in Somerville, Massachusetts. I have two roles. One is I am a consultant to the Beverage Association of Vermont, which represents the non alcoholic beverage distributors in the state. I also manage the commingling program. I have managed the commingling program for fifteen years since just after its inception in 2008. So I'm gonna kinda draw on both of those experiences to have a few remarks about the bill, where it stands, how it has changed, and what our problem is with some of the most recent changes. We are fundamentally we were supportive of the bill as it came across from the house. Senate Natural Resources made some changes, which we also supported. But at the last minute, the additional handling fee pushed us into an opposed position, and I wanna talk a little bit about why that is so. First of all sorry?

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: No. Think we can all please continue.

[Bree Dietly (Breezeway Consulting), for the Beverage Association of Vermont]: Oh, sure. Sorry. Sorry. So first, let me clarify who our members are and who the deposit initiators are that we're talking about. I've heard a lot of conversation about the biggest companies in the world. That's not who initiates deposits on beverages. The local distributor is the company that initiates deposits on beverages. So we're talking about Coke Northeast up, in Colchester. We're talking about Pepsi Burlington, and we're talking about Pepsi Brattleboro. We're talking about Polar Beverages. We're talking about Farrell, Baker, until recently, Caledonia, and all of the small microbreweries and distributors in the state. That's who initiates and pays for this system. The money doesn't come from a Coca Cola in Atlanta or Anheuser Busch or, you know, in St. Louis. It's coming from local companies, and that gets to the core issue that we have with this revision of the bill, which is this additional penny handling fee, which is going to add to the we we currently pay collectively. The distributors in Vermont pay $7,000,000 a year in handling fees. That's simply the 3 and a half or 4¢ that goes to the redemption centers and retailers to cover part of their costs for handling containers. The distributors also incur costs to pay Tamara and others as pickup agents to go out and pick up and process those containers. So that's not the only cost of the system. It is the main cost of the system. The additional penny that got added in Central National Natural Resources is going to last for about two and a half years until the program comes online. That's gonna add about $1,800,000 to the cost of running this system. That $1,800,000 on top of the $7,100,000 is going to ultimately be borne by Vermont consumers. Our concern here is that we are supportive of this bill because of the innovations and the ability that this creates for the system as a whole to be sustainable, to be more updated, to be more efficient. Nothing has really changed in the bottle bill since 1972 except for the institution of the commingling program, which the beverage industry voluntarily created and supported, back in 2008. We incurred pretty significant costs and incur costs every year to make that co mingling system work. And what that system does is allow that 85% of the volume of returns that come back every year comes through a system that requires no more sorting than simply distributing by container type and size. So all that chain and other redemption centers are doing are separating the aluminum, the glass, and the plastic by size category. They don't care if it's a Coke, a Pepsi, a Sprite, whatever brand of beer it might be. All those go in together. That is saving the redemption centers and has saved redemption centers significant amounts of effort. It saves space. It saves time, and it's become made the system much more efficient. Our support for this bill, and in fact, going back to my engagement with senator Bray when he put together the original working group to come up with a compromise like this that ultimately arrived at this produced responsibility structure for the program was not just to say, let's throw more money at the system. It was to say, let's see what we're doing in this system that doesn't make sense, and let's see if we can make it any better. Senator Hardy has heard me say this a couple of times when I've been before her committee. Vermont has the least automated redemption system probably in the world, certainly in The United States. Of the 100 and roughly 180,000,000 containers that came back last year, about 98% of those were touched by people, and not touched by people once, but touched by people five and six times between the time they're delivered to a retailer or a redemption center, and they're ultimately turned into, you know, sold to be processed into into new products. With automation, that is reduced dramatically, And the idea of putting a PRO in place of as we've outlined in proposals to ANR and discussions with Matt and others, we've outlined a proposal to increase the use of tech to provide technology through this organization that will allow for bulk sorting of this material so that no one has to handle it other than dumping the bags into the container where the barcodes can be read, the containers can be scanned. We know exactly what's coming back, and the material can be handled for a lot less money than having people individually sort it, look at it, throw it into a bag, and then have it handled five more times before it makes it into the recycling system. So we're trying to make those investments.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Okay. Excuse me. We've I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We are the jurisdiction of this committee really are the fees.

[Bree Dietly (Breezeway Consulting), for the Beverage Association of Vermont]: Understood.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. And we are now about a half hour over time. So if you can get just really concise.

[Bree Dietly (Breezeway Consulting), for the Beverage Association of Vermont]: I think that the concise point and it's it's where I'm going here. The concise point is that the additional handling fee that was added by Senate Natural Resources is going to add up to something like $5,000,000 over the time between now and when we implement this program. The money that's going to come out of the Clean Environment Fund to reimburse the industry for making investments in this bulk sorting technology, which is going to drive down costs and burdens on the redemption centers, is 3 and a half million dollars. So we're going to have to pay more in terms of higher handling fees than we're going to get back for the investments that we make. The other thing is that you're going to be giving redemption centers a 29% raise with this 1¢ handling fee increase. That is going to undermine the fundamental concept behind this entire proposal. If they get a 29% raise and continue to do exactly what they're doing today, There's no way that they're going to negotiate with a producer responsibility organization to implement pretty dramatic changes at their facility, potentially remodeling their facilities, putting a $175,000 piece of equipment in their facility. That's gonna be very disruptive. It's going to be paid for by the PRO. But why talk to the PRO? Why deal with the PRO when you've just been given a 29% increase? So not only do the finances not work out with this system, not only does it cost consumers a lot more money in the meantime, you're undermining the whole principle of the reform element of this bill in the first place. And that's really our concern here. It's critical, I think, to understand that three quarters of the containers that come back in the state come back through retailers, like Shane's operation. Shane sells beverages. So do three quarters of the facilities that handle empties. They make money selling those beverage containers. The reason that the bottle bill was structured the way it was initially without a handling fee is that both distributors and retailers were sharing the responsibility because both were making money on the sale of those products. What we've done over time is increase handling fees to compensate people for running facilities when, in fact, it's only the independent redemption centers that are reliant on the handling fees solely to cover their costs. Surprisingly, about a quarter of the returns to those independent redemption centers have been rock solid. It's been a quarter the whole time. It's it's been very steady. I see the the roster of redemption centers, and, yes, there have been some closures. But every time I see one close, almost always see somebody buy it and reopen it. So we're just asking that the original intent of this bill be upheld. We're asking that you not increase this cost on consumers and on distributors and ultimately on consumers in the short term because you're going to undermine the fundamental purpose of this bill in the first place. We're not going to get the cooperation. We're not going to be able to implement the kinds of reforms we need if that handling fee increase goes into effect.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. Are there any questions? Okay. Thank you very much.

[Bree Dietly (Breezeway Consulting), for the Beverage Association of Vermont]: You're quite welcome.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Mr. Sherman, can you do this in, we'll only be a half hour behind if you can do it in two minutes. All right, I will drop.

[Nick Sherman (Leonine Public Affairs), for the Vermont Wholesale Beverage Association]: Thank you very much. Nick Sherman, Leithen, Public Affairs, here on behalf of the Vermont Wholesale Beverage Association. Association. I'm gonna refer to them as the beer distributors. Okay. And I guess I'd like to start by saying that beer distributors are a key part of both in terms of the product itself and the bottle bill, this system, and we share that with the retention centers who are often the retail stores that sell the product. So the same market pressures that they're dealing with are also affecting the beer distributors industry, and I would like to highlight that the Vermont beer distributors are Vermont businesses. We are not the biggest businesses in quotes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Are Pepsi, you just are

[Nick Sherman (Leonine Public Affairs), for the Vermont Wholesale Beverage Association]: Vermont based businesses who employ Vermonters, members of the community, and I just want want to be clear because I I take a point that I want to leave you with that in imposing this 1¢ fee increase, it will be borne by these Vermont businesses. I just want to make sure that that's kind of the key point you take away. Little bit of quick context, the underlying bill, we've been not opposed to it, and going along, I will say that there has been great concern the whole time about the viability and the success of it going forward in the long term. Those costs and the mechanisms are not incredibly well spelled out and not well understood by the beer distributors, and they're nervous about whether or not this underlying bill will be successful and what the costs in the long term will be. However, because it has been this sort of delicate balance between the state and the stakeholders trying to move this forward with a system that we understand needs to be reformed, we've been going along with it. That said, when the 1¢ increase was put in that really, for reasons misleadingly highlighted, adds to that concern. I have more here, but I think, you know, we're concerned. I would suggest that a better path forward would be to, this underlying bill, the PRO system lays out a process where the stakeholders get together and they figure out what the costs are and run the system based on that. There's negotiated fee down. Instead of this 1¢ increase now, I would suggest getting ANR to form a task force immediately, start looking at this question, where there are cost feeds in the redemption centers, look at that right away. If the distributors need to be part of funding that, let's have the conversation, but we don't really understand the detail about where the cost needs are. They say they're there, but what are they? If we can understand those, maybe we can more strategically fund what is needed instead of having just this blanket fee that will be a $1,800,000 increase to the industry.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Hasn't been increased in a long time. Sure.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Sure.

[Nick Sherman (Leonine Public Affairs), for the Vermont Wholesale Beverage Association]: And I'll just finish by saying, you know, the distributors cannot put that cost in consumers. It will pass on to our customers. I have to imagine that will pass on to consumers. I just want to be clear about that. Anyway, we're concerned about this this fee increase, you know, take that into consideration.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: That's a penny a can, right?

[Nick Sherman (Leonine Public Affairs), for the Vermont Wholesale Beverage Association]: The increase is correct.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It's 20% increase, right, from overworker. It is 3.5 to 4.5.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: There are very few products that have not gone up. It's a penny. I don't settle for any of them that just went up. Any last seven years. It's 2,009. 2,009. Well, it wasn't the last time. So yeah. I mean, labor costs have gone up since then. Everything has gone up since then. Okay. Middle questions. Thank you. Thank you. Now I'm gonna finish this one for today. I'm gonna go on to a couple I hope we can. We has Bradley is still here.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, ma'am.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. I think we have reached agreement on ninetwenty eight. Means we have Brad clearance drafted. Michael, do you have anything to add?

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Not for 09/15. I'm Sometimes. Year or 09/20, I should draft it.

[Bradley (Legislative Counsel)]: I'll share my screen, but so there is two amendments before the committee, so 09/28 that we went over yesterday. And so the changes of the amendments that you saw yesterday were is just deleted language. So we're looking at the PFAS unavoidable use for PFAS tree container PFAS containers. And so it is draft 1.1. And so the lead in language here, this is amending report of the Committee on Center of Natural Resources because we're amending their amendment to the underlying house bill. But remainder of the amendment is the same as we saw yesterday.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. So we did the big, deep, containers. We included senator Brennan's amendment in a year. If we

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: approve both of these, there'll be one amendment, though, for the committee. Right?

[Bradley (Legislative Counsel)]: I I think it'll be two because it's amending two different underlying documents. So it's amending the house bill, and then it's also amending the report of this for the community and the senate natural resources.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Oh, because our report was not a strict.

[Bradley (Legislative Counsel)]: That's exactly right.

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

[Bradley (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. I try I actually try to draft this That's for Okay.

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: And so our network knows.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Working experience. Yeah. The Trying. First one I have is $1.91.

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: That is correct.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And that is the following fees. That is essentially Senator Brennan's amendment.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Yep.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And we struck out that duplicative O.

[Bradley (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Yeah. So it was structured. It's a structured as a strike call. Today, it's structured as This is adding.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So we aren't adding a new o. That's correct. Cover the old o. Okay. Because they were the same.

[Bradley (Legislative Counsel)]: And so this bill amends the underlying the as path by version of the house.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Right. This was these aren't fees they are presently charging.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: That is correct.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We are not touching anything that said they can up a big gain fee in the court back within a year. It's necessary because that's in out of the underlying bill. That

[Bradley (Legislative Counsel)]: is is correct. That is in the underlying bill, and it's not being touched here.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. So committee, what is your pleasure with this first one?

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm fine with both, but so will our committee report we have two committee reports.

[Bradley (Legislative Counsel)]: I I I think that might be up to the secretary, but I I think so.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Think so. Be doing two amendments to the bill. I

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: don't want

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So may Brandon think we will the underlying bill, the bill on the floor will be the house version, which will be amended by natural resources. Right? And then we will do further amendment to that. Right. I don't think we're we're adding two. Right? Not striking.

[Bradley (Legislative Counsel)]: That's exactly right. They're both married right

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: now as the committee on Friday, this committee of members.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yes. They are.

[Bradley (Legislative Counsel)]: Yep.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We are so the underlying bill will be the house bill because no one's done a strike all, and it will be amended. Ah, that's 100%.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: What's your pleasure on which one to take out the first one?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Looking at the first one on the agenda, which is the one we've gone over. The fees. The fees. Yeah.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Senator Brennan. Would move favorably as one of our Just release that. With committee amendments draft number 1.1 dated by fifteen twenty twenty six at 10:17AM, also known as the Brennan amendment regarding Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Is the senator Chittenden has moved that we approve draft number 1.1 to h two eighty nine

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Nine twenty eight. Page nine twenty eight.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Nine twenty eight. H Page nine twenty eight. And those that is the addition of the fees that fish and wildlife is presently setting without legislative approval the education bill, one of the tax bills takes that out and tells them to report back for approval. This is their reporting back for approval. These are existing fees, and it's just making them totally legal. Any new fees will come in, like access, will have to come into the legislature like all other fees. So this these are the fees that they are presently charging for these activities.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: She misses to the underlying deliverable as received from the house.

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: Yes. So, speaking to the house.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Alright. Is there further discussion? If not, all of those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed. I see that it's six zero one, and I'm gonna do the second amendment.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Are you ready for the motions?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: This is the chlorine treated containers, the big ones that there is no viable substitute for at this point. This is

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: the one we

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: forgot to add to the bill. It's another larger Scrivener's era. Yeah.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It's even ending their report.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yes. And actually, Caledonia did this. Dealt with large flooring containers at one point in the last couple. Well, this is saying that gives them more time because they still haven't found an alternative. That's probably a standard. Would that move that?

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I would move favorably draft number 1.1 of the AGNI '28

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: amending the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy Report.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: And that draft is dated fivefifteentwenty twenty six at 10:50PM.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Is there further discussion on that amendment? If not, all those in paper say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Six zero one is how I'm saying. I'm gonna check with Oh,

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: we need to vote Yeah,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: think we need to vote favorably on the bill as amended. Okay. So you make that?

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: You favorably h nine twenty eight as amended both the underlying bill from

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: the house and the committee on natural resources and energies. Sure.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Right.

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: Got another sheet. So

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I don't think so. I think you can just.

[Nick Sherman (Leonine Public Affairs), for the Vermont Wholesale Beverage Association]: I'm just I'm just gonna say it's just gonna

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: be fine

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: because it's two for us. Right? Apparently.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know what this is. It's gonna be I think you're upgraded. I think, honestly, the secretary is probably gonna ask you for a substitute amendment where you strike all of the natural resources. Oh, yeah. Or And do a strike

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: ball for both of them.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Or you people do that. What what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go upstairs. Bradley and I will talk to the secretary, and we'll figure out on that. You're gonna see what you just agreed, but it might be in a different format. Just in one.

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

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: might make more sense if you're presenting the natural resources to just do a substitute. Okay.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I mean, I can report whatever because I I don't follow both of these closely. Mostly. So, let's vote

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: this bill as amended, right? And then and that's pending like, add ins by the secretary of the set.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, you have to deliver it to him anyway, so we'll go talk to him. We'll go talk to him. And he says, redraft it. We'll redraft it, and we'll bring you down to you.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. And we will do a Yesterday. Cursory. Yeah. Yesterday approval. Oh. Okay. It's been moved that we approve age who's the one who's just under age nine twenty eight as amended. Further discussion? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Six zero one, senator Beck, if you can be missing. Okay. Good. We're honorable. Okay. We've only got three more bills, and we have a committee of conference. Let's just tell them what

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: they're Okay. Beautiful.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Next. Still have our. Actually.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: We still have the.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Oh, we're on fifteenth. Oh, not up yet. You did it before. I've got miscellaneous. Yeah.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Tuesday at four miscellaneous times.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Then today is the. Right now? At four. Oh, at four. No.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: I think it was at the Tuesday morning.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: That's miscellaneous packs. So you don't have one. Oh, no. You don't.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: And it's riding some chairs.

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name unknown)]: It's not messing up. You're skewed against that.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So you can squeeze. I don't know. Yes. Don't mess with.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Alright. Percent.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Oh, well, then we could

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: slow down. Woah. Woah. Woah. Keep our foot in

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: the Alright. It feels so great. Did you get the pen? It's bad. It's We're

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: still waiting for Ellen. So I

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Ellen did get that amendment to me. So I sent you to Charlotte.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It's just two lines. Okay. And

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: it's not exactly what Greg recommended, but it's closed. So okay. To see

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: if he had the semen. Just saw him. Yeah. Would not. Forgot. Oh.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Not. We're

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: for. So it's not a formal for anything.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Member)]: I've got about five. It's usually just moving.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. If it's the. Get her in here. Good. But you know you have a way to

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: feel like finding that better. It's because

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I'm gonna ask you to do her section. That's gonna do the end section.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Which you have.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So that just gives me Yeah. Okay. Does she know that?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Okay. You knew what? But yeah. She's done worse. Didn't talk about it. Add it to me. Now we will get picked up very much. Thanks. And then

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: another this year. Let's go. I know. One, two, three of us. Met somebody else. Ruth, before I forget. Yes. Will you do a school construction section of the on the floor? Yes, absolutely. Since it's yours. Absolutely. And Seth is going to do or whoever you sign. Santa's gonna do the education section. Okay. And I'll do the money stuff. Perfect. But you know that. That's school construction. Okay. Cool. Thank you. That is gonna be Tuesday. I know. I saw that.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: I just talked to Alan and Greg, and there's just a tiny tweak on my amendment, and then Greg is okay with it. Okay, if he's okay, then we might be. Okay. That would get me to yes. That's where the rest of the community are. Once I'm happy to be no with all of the as well.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Wait. I'm sorry. Which bill are we talking about? The $2.48. Ellen. Yes. Here we go. Portrait

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: us all.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So, Ellen, we're all gonna take a deep breath after the bottle. And we're going to get on to this easy for the afternoon.

[Bradley (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. So this this builds actually, I'm sorry. Extends the yeah. This, as it came to us, extends the sunset for three years. Right?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Allergic Gaps Gaps Legislative Council, h five twenty seven, the extension of the section two forty eight sunset. And I think we had agreed on that yesterday, but senator Hardy has some proposals. Yes. Oh, actually, is it posted now? Okay. It should be.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Alright. It should be posted Do

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: you share it? Can Alex share it? I can. So what I what you were just mentioning was I did provide the committee a draft from the committee of finance that all it does is extend the sunset three years and it took out the study. However, Senator Hardy had another suggestion that she would like you all to

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: participate. So my suggestion is on the web site, although there is going to

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: be a tweet to it that

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: you guys are minimal to the suggestion just overall.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It's just another one of those comma things.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: No. No. It's a figure for me. It's not de minimis. It's limited in scope. It's under. Yeah. It's under my name. And I just by way of explanation, you know, I said I was concerned about this. I I remained concern I still remain concerned because we I've heard just from so many constituents who think this process doesn't work for them. I feel like it's there's not time to fix it right now. I am committed as senator Beck said. We're looking at this more in the off session on the meeting with PUC and others to try to figure out, you know, if there are necessary other changes. But for now, after committee yesterday, Greg Favor from PUC and I talked in the hall, and he made a suggestion that's similar to what I'm proposing. His is a little bit different, but and this is under the after there's a proposal for a new tower, if it it the the company that's proposing it may has to do a public hearing if the municipality holds a public hearing. And this is just making it so that the for any application other than Biden's right now says for other than de minimis, but after talking to Greg, we would add or limited in scope. The municipal legislative body or the Planning Commission shall hold and the applicant shall attend a newly born public meeting with the legislative body or planning commission or both within a sixty day period. And DPS has shall attend that public meeting so that there's a there's a requirement that there's public meetings so people in the town know that it's happening and that that DPS is there to hear their concerns. This was in one of the towns where there was a tower proposed in my district. I don't believe there was a public hearing. People didn't know about it because it wasn't a public hearing, and it kinda blew up after it was too late to do anything about it. So this is just to make sure that there's a public hearing, but especially in these really small towns, which is where a lot of these powers are proposed, that people will be have an opportunity to come and talk to their local officials about it and that the Department of Public Service, which is supposed to be the citizen advocate, will be required to be there to hear what the people say about it. So this is not a wholesale fix, but it hopefully will give

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: at least Yeah. Chance to And the POC is okay with us? Yeah. Okay. What's what's the little non

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: The little fix, which Alan can support. Yeah. It's there are three levels. There's de minimis, there's limited scope, and then there's the big projects. And Greg had suggested doing de minimis and limited scope, but in looking at it late last night, I thought limited scope was bigger than it actually is, so it would just add limited in scope. Greg or Alan can explain better

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: than feet. Can you do that while we sit here? Yes. Okay. Committee questions. Greg is, this is, I know we talked about extending the timelines, this would work.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Right, so the, other right paper with PC, this would would happen during an advanced notice period and give people a lot more information about the towers. Okay. And have the Department of Public Service there. That's a great idea. And it wouldn't wouldn't be overly burdensome to the towns because it would only be for the big ones. So I think it makes a lot of sense.

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

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: these meetings would be you know, we Ellen made sure I thought they would be, but she double checked with him that there would be public meetings that would be and they would have to be, you know, have minutes to be recorded just like other meetings of select boards and at play, which is the people we can't attend can also appear with. I

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Vice Chair)]: was googling, but the warning time of those, you can

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: do this within forty eight hours, right, as long as you post them to your website, your municipal website, and to other spaces, you could roll within two days. You don't see, like, two weeks and then another two weeks when the advertisement was run.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Correct. I mean, they could be they could be worn as a special meeting, but they could also be worn as a regular select board meeting or a regular planning commission meeting. And those that I have, I think, a seven day warning period. I can't remember. Yeah. But

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I think that's that on.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: But but there would be plenty of time within the sixty day period. So this would add to what we were already gonna do, which was to just do the deadline. Was it three years that we decided? Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I have drafted an update on that. I'm sending to Charlotte. Thank you, Allen. Thank you, Ruth. Yeah.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you, Ruth.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: You're welcome. Good work. Nice work.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Quickly try and get something.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: No. She's not. This is. Yeah.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: We'll just be draft 1.2.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It'll be 2.1. Two point Oh, yeah. Okay. It's not going to their internal or external or something. Yeah. Got public drafts on the first. I have on the left side of the brain, period. Internal drafts on the right. Okay. So come up here. Two points. I'm sorry. One. Just

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: waiting to see it on the website. Motion. That can be at 05:15.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: 05:15?

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: I don't know.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I hope so. They do not. I just finished. By

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: the way, in those towns in Vermont,

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: some property taxes are new today, so just a friendly reminder. How's that? No.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: No. Ours is at you.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: In some time.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Right. Right, right. Gonna keep that out. You got some.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I think it's out. Bacon Pride. Yeah, I'm trying Yeah. To Fifteen. And then three more weeks of water. There

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: it goes. It's just it's there now. There.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Okay. Your water bills are due at the '22

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: a year from now.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Oh, 2 a year?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. More expensive water.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: More water? Like, Moved favorably h five twenty seven amended with draft number 2.1 dated 06/05/2026 until fifty four PM. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: That mister Chittenden has ruled that we would have meant h 5.7 with 2.1 three minutes ago. Is there any and this would okay. This this does it all. Right? It does the expansion, and it does Senator Hardy's? Yes. Okay.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: And it because it's a strike all, it's getting rid of the rest of it. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I'll report that. Okay. This is a strike. Yeah. Okay. Further discussion. If not on this one, what about the role?

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Sure. Senator Chittenden? Yep. Senator

[Nick Sherman (Leonine Public Affairs), for the Vermont Wholesale Beverage Association]: Beck? Senator Hardy?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Yes.

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Senator Brock? Yes. Senator Buellich?

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

[Sen. Christopher Mattos (Clerk)]: Senator Mattos? Yes. Senator Cummings? Yes. Six zero

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: one. Who would like to report this?

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Happy to do it, but it's your amendment. Just haven't taken one in a while. That's why

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Well, She's her gotten

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: Yeah. I have a bunch, so I'd rather actually not do. I'd rather You've got a combo. But thank you. Thank you, Sandra.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. So, you're shaking your little bit, Alcorn. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Oh, we are on a roll. We are now going to take up educational technology products and we need bricks. He is on his mind. This was what somebody mentioned could get controversial. Yeah. Yeah.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: A lot of emails like, I'm hearing a lot of chatter

[Bradley (Legislative Counsel)]: about this

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: one. Yeah. Know. Know. Know. Okay. So that's why you're here. Alright. We've got this. In the corner. We have You said you do your fiscal note first or would that not make Principal's office. Probably needs here.

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. But

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Member)]: then Can we take a reach

[Michael Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: it to you.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. Let's