Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: We are live.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Alright. Good morning. This is Senate Health and Welfare. We're looking at H. 42, which has come back. It's here in the Senate. We're looking at an amendment, the bill, and an amendment from the committee on finance. The consideration for us, we just frankly, we don't have time to go through the whole PCB testing issue that's embedded in the bill and the effects of PCB on kids or staff in schools. We have looked at it years previously, and I think we're all aware of it.

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: I know PCBs, yeah. Yeah, So, but

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Michael, maybe help us understand just briefly what's in the bill on the finance and then the subsidy.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sure. This is Michael Gray with the French Council. Just to give you context for what H5-fourteen does in In 2021, in the appropriations bill, the general assembly required that all schools that were constructed or renovated prior to 1980 do indoor air quality testing for PCBs. And they were supposed to complete that testing by 2024. And at the same time, the state committed to pay for all of the investigation, remediation, and removal of PCBs at the discovery through dosing. Subsequently, you extended that deadline to 2027. You did continue to commit to paying for all of the investigation, remediation, and removal. You in one year, you appropriated approximately $32,000,000 for for clearance for that, including 16,000,000 for Burlington. We subsequently appropriated another $9.9.5, and then made, also made some money available from the environmental contingency fund, which is a fund that ANR has to respond to hazardous waste issues or hazardous materials such as such as. So the testing has been ongoing. There are 328 schools in Vermont that were built or renovated before 1980. A 183 have had an inventory and inventories before you do the actual sampling, do an assessment of what needs to be sampled. A 150 schools have been sampled. 46 schools have had PCBs detected above the state action level. A 145 schools still need the inventory, so pretesting and assessment. And a 171 schools need, the indoor air sampling. Problem is there's no more money.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: So

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: in doing the sampling and finding schools with issues, especially schools with significant issues. There's been significant funding that has been spent to bring those schools to a standard that's safe for students and other users of the school. The house bill h five forty two proposed to end the testing program entirely. So there would still be there's a 171 schools that would still need sampling or testing and would not need to continue with that. They would have paid for the those schools that were already in the pipeline that were testing or had tested and discovered issues, but money would have been needed to have been appropriated for that or the school would basically pause their response until money was appropriate. Your Senate Education Committee disagreed that approach. Instead of ending the testing program, they extended the testing program. They pushed out the testing program to 08/01/2031. They also created a special fund that could be used to provide grants to schools to do testing, but there's no money yet.

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: Was gonna That's say

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: my favorite kind of point.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It does have a potential revenue source in that the money the state is currently suing PCB manufacturers, and it's not it's not just, you know, pie in the sky speculative litigation. There has been litigation in other states, and there have been pretty sizable settlements. So there is there is, you know, a reasonable assumption that there will be money available, but litigation takes time. The litigation is still only in discovery mode. It will take probably years before there's a order or settlement. So the the so education could be in that looking at that and push the deadline out to twenty thirty twenty thirty one. Senate finance looked at that issue and pushed it out to 2035 after taking some testimony from the attorney general. The other thing that the senate education committee bill does is it changes the school construction funding process, which you just enacted and just will go into effect this July, part of what you are doing is the school construction aid grant program, which also has no money. But if a school were to engage that process, there's procedure for what they need to do and there's what basically you do need to do an assessment of your school. As part of that assessment of your school year that you haven't tested already, you will be required to test. You can get money for that from the special fund. Which doesn't exist. Which doesn't have any money.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: Well, it exists, but it's money

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: in her. Well, it is. Yeah.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Okay. May Does the finance committee amendment affect the capital the construction fund?

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Does not.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Okay. So that would be regardless. Okay.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. So the

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: And it's not our jurisdiction to do that. I mean, adding PCP made a whole lot of sense if there's money. But

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The finance committee does amend the special fund, but only because the attorney general wanted some wording tweaks and because JFO wanted the wording tweaks as well.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Okay. Oh, and JFO also? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: House of your appropriations committee looked at the bill yesterday. They did not vote on it. They want to explore

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: We're looking at it today.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. They are. And if they're they're trying to find some funding, they're gonna see if there's money available in the environmental contingency fund. There's gonna see if there's money available in the budget budgeting contingency funds. House.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: This took that?

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. Senate senate approves. Senate approves. Okay. I did say that. I started it. I was it was okay. That's fine. But but they they they voted they they didn't vote. They basically said, let's see what the possibility is for some funds before we vote. And So there there may be an effort to find money to put in such a fund this year. There

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: you have it. So I mean, question is the question for us is, is it important to extend the deadline to ensure testing in schools or not? And then the second question is, well, if we support the Education Committee, it's 2,031. If we support the Finance Committee with testimony from the AG and JFO, it's 2,035. And I think Senator Gulick wants to comment on this from your experience. If you don't mind, I could write

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: a short note on this topic, but I will just speak to the finance committee because I think what we were grappling with was acknowledging that these are harmful chemicals that need to be addressed and you can't just ignore that they're out there. But at the same time, this is we called it before the mother of all unfunded mandates. It's so we have this tension, right? So we thought pushing the date out to 2035 went after, know, possible litigation will be completed at that point. You know, also acknowledging that there's a lot of school construction aid and merging of school districts and potential, who knows, closing some schools. All of that is at play with this. So giving ourselves more time just makes sense. And I've been advocating for this PCB program from day one to be part of the school construction system or potential systems. We don't have a system quite yet, but So I personally you know, barring the complete shutdown of the program, which I don't think is necessarily a good idea, I do think that moving it out to 2035 is a good option. Is that a really good question for you?

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: Yeah. I guess I don't mind that, but as an example, right now you have some that have some funding, some that aren't going have any funding, And you were still going to mandate that they perform these tests for any of a pledged counsel.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The deadline would the the language says all schools shall be tested and then it's just a question of what they need. Okay.

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: So then my other issue is then we're gonna force them to do that and then they're gonna be outlaiding their own funds.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. So that's so ANR is required by the language to do the testing and then there's language that says the state has to pay for it. Okay. So the the the state might the state might pay for it through a reimbursement process. So maybe the school district has to that out like first, but then the state will reimburse for it.

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: You know, I thought there wasn't any money.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There isn't.

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: Well So nothing's gonna happen. That's just

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that's what

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: So right. So nothing is going to happen. But if I was a school district guy, I'd say

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: I had some I had some really great conversations with ANR, and they support this. They support the push out of the date. They support keeping it going because they want us to have schools that aren't PCBs. North

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: is

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: like an incredible story. I agree with you. ANR wants to work with schools and wants to work with the agency and wants to be a partner in this. And they don't want to be this, like, hammer of regulatory, you know, force. That's through the conversations I've had with the.

[Sen. John Benson (Member)]: There's a lot of wild idea.

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: Uh-oh. May not have any validity, but when we apply next year for oral health,

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: as she can't RHT?

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This is a health issue.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: It is, but here's one of the I know

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: where you're going with this one.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: RHT will fund programs that are currently going on, so would it have to be new?

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. So

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: And, also, it must be problematic. We could talk

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Let it expire.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: That's Well, I don't know. We we can ask. We can we can we suggestion. It's a good creative suggestion.

[Sen. John Benson (Member)]: So I'm starring transformers. Know?

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: Not just transformers. This is in tiles. It's in countertops. It's in insulation. It's everywhere.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: It's all over the place.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I just

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: Yeah. I know. Transformers.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Some of it's already leached out, bled out. Stuff.

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: Because I've I've done these before. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Member)]: I know. Buildings where you you have to go and have

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: them tested and then torn out of them. So comes to the

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: Oh, and the clean outs.

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: Yeah. Why don't you go on a

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: No. Pushing it out. The radon is also an issue.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: You're good with that? Yep.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Petvey and John. I mean, think I would I'm gonna we'll

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: be talking in in appropriations later today, and Go ahead. We have your straw poll. This is great. So appropriations will

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: continue for Yes. F-thirty 5.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Got it. F-thirty 5.

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: Yeah. In Burlington.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Wait. Who who? Okay. Sure. So I don't know what you're thinking.

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: No. I Yes. I'm boring. It's just I just don't wanna see the school districts get burned. No. You're right. No. Once those dollars come like, FEMA, state dollars, these projects that I get into, you have to front the money. Yeah. Right. And then you're you're you're caught. So, basically, you're probably gonna borrow the dollars, and then you'll be paying interest on it.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: Then you're gonna go back to your voters, because it doesn't happen in that year, for an increase.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then we're gonna be

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: blaming the state as an unfunded mandate.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Everybody will be pointing fingers.

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: Yeah, and so it's just kind of an insane, old saying. Well,

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: is frustrating, isn't it? So, know, but I'm fine with the 35, fine with supporting what finance has done. We'll see what appropriations does this afternoon that might help help. Mean one thing we were off in

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: the bucket is that having kids alone at home and not with their peer groups, and it's not it's it's detrimental to their health also. So that's the other thing we

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: have to win. Right? We want them to have a You know?

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: We want them to You gotta find you gotta find. We gotta find. Agree. This is, I said, so Okay.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: So We get it. We understand. So are we good with the?

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: Yeah. You're on airplanes. Yes. Are good with Alright.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Great. Thank you very much, Michael.

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: I appreciate it. You too.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: I have one quick thing. We have the confirmation for the Secretary of Human Services and I have her resume.

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: She's underlined, it must be, in the calendar.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Yeah, so she's in public health theater for more than thirty years in complex health and human services systems, healthcare reform and Medicaid, public health strategy, crisis emergency response, mental health, substance use systems, so a broad range of work. She has been overseeing AHS, COVID-nineteen response, helped shape Vermont healthcare reform initiatives. She has worked very closely with us on that. She's not out here though. She's not in here. We haven't set

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: her up. Okay, okay, okay.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: We're setting

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: her up. Yeah.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: May, I don't know. She's been secretary since 2022 and which is a $5,200,000,000 budget with 4,000 employees. She was deputy secretary for two years, deputy commissioner and principal assistant for Veeva for four, two years. Blueprint for help, she was very instrumental in getting that stood up. After it got started then she came in with lead poisoning prevention program coordinator. Leadership positions for HIV prevention and health workforce development. She has a Masters of Science in Community Health Education from Illinois

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: Alright. Good. And are we doing these tomorrow on the floor? Is that If we yeah.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: I think probably. Okay. Yeah. Maybe our last Friday. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. I would be fine with that. Yes. Okay. Alright. Wonderful. Thank you. So, Emery, thank you today, and we can go up live, and we'll start from this meeting.

[Sen. John Morley III (Member)]: Emery's